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Slow growth of agricultural income has contributed to poor economic growth and poverty in India in modern times. The condition was weakened by Green Revolutions in the last third of the twentieth century. Conventional accounts attribute the stagnation to institutions created during colonial rule in India. This article suggests, instead, that it derived from an environmental constraint. The Green Revolutions succeeded partly because state aid enabled peasants to overcome the constraint in some regions.

Slow growth of agricultural income has contributed to poor economic growth and poverty in India in modern times. The condition was weakened by Green Revolutions in the last third of the twentieth century. Conventional accounts attribute the stagnation to institutions created during colonial rule in India. This article suggests, instead, that it derived from an environmental constraint. The Green Revolutions succeeded partly because state aid enabled peasants to overcome the constraint in some regions.